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About Me

Since the 1990s I have been very involved with fighting the military "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military, and with First Amendment issues. Best contact is 571-334-6107 (legitimate calls; messages can be left; if not picked up retry; I don't answer when driving) Three other url's: doaskdotell.com, billboushka.com johnwboushka.com Links to my URLs are provided for legitimate content and user navigation purposes only.
My legal name is "John William Boushka" or "John W. Boushka"; my parents gave me the nickname of "Bill" based on my middle name, and this is how I am generally greeted. This is also the name for my book authorship. On the Web, you can find me as both "Bill Boushka" and "John W. Boushka"; this has been the case since the late 1990s. Sometimes I can be located as "John Boushka" without the "W." That's the identity my parents dealt me in 1943!

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Arnold Schoenberg's opera "Moses und Aron"

I’ve waited for some years for a DVD (possibly a 1973 French
film) of the opera “Moses und Aron” (or “Moses and Aaron”) by Arnold Schoenberg
to appear on Netflix, so today I dug out my 1985 recording on London with Sir
Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

Only two acts were complete;
a text exists for the third. The
entire work runs about 97 minutes.

The opera plays out the major personality difference between
Moses (Franz Mazura) and his older brother Aaron (Philip Langridge). Aaron grew up with his own people and,
although he interceded with Moses in the Egyptian court when trying to secure
the release of the Israelites from slavery, he reminded closer to the people “emotionally”
and his attitude was more permissive when the people became restless while
Moses was on the mountain receiving The Ten Commandments.

The music is largely atonal and dodecaphonic, and Wikipedia
diagrams the row here. Yet it often becomes quite “postromantic” in
characters, especially in the louder passages with full chorus. At spots in the Act I, there are
foreshadowings of the first movement of Leonard Bernstein’s “Kaddish” Symphony.

The most arresting part of the opera is Scene 3 of Act 2,
the Golden Calf scene, where the impatient Israelites engage in “idol worship”. Is that the same thing as my “upward
affiliation”? Most of this 24-minute scene
is orchestral and in fast tempi, and in spots it recalls the violent scherzo (third
movement) of the Mahler Ninth. The dance
would work well as a standalone work in concerts. In a few places, it almost anticipates modern
acid disco.

The first act ends very tonally, in fact, in F# minor, with
violence; the second act dies away on a
final F#.

Additional: I just “broke
down” and ordered the Amazon DVD of a 2011 performance directed by Daniel
Huillet, link, distributed by New Yorker Films. I’ll add some comments about the scenery (especially
the Golden Calf) as soon as I’ve seen it.
This performance appears to add about ten minutes of the unfinished Act
III.

Update: Dec. 24. The DVD arrived and I reviewed it on the movies blog today.

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